Two Poems for Enoch Powell

“Another thing is no matter how much you think you love somebody, you’ll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.” — Chuck Palahniuk

Rivers of blood were what you saw ahead,
But they weren’t rivers, Enoch, instead
They were stagnant pools of blood that choke
But do not rise, swell but do not move, soak
And fester, flowing nowhere; each one fed
By far off well springs that bring but fetid
Ooze. No aqua pura beneath what’s bled
By these shores, nothing but a bloody joke:
Rivers of blood
That do not wash away and are not red
Like English roses and St George. What’s bred
Within them shall not evolve, cannot evoke
A semblance of the nation or the folk
Who’ve stepped back, lost to the unmoving, dread,
Rivers of blood.

The Birmingham Speech
Enoch Powell Was Right

Well, you told them. They didn’t listen, for
The most part (and those who did were not them-
Selves listened to. Called racists, skinheads, or
Worse, they were regarded as the flotsam
Of a dying empire, not worthy
Of a voice or a place to call their own.
And now it’s here, that dis-future that they,
The few, realized could be): England has grown
Worse not better since 1968.
Just as you predicted. Do any of
Your early detractors discriminate
Between England “before” and what they have
Left of a country now? For their sake, I
Hope not — for how could they not want to die.

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You were a prophet
You were a seer
You felt the scorching pain of the whip
You saw the cities burned
You felt the pang of ravages
You told them wake up,
They thought you were odd
They thought you were mad.
And now,
We are dismayed.